IT Systems You Wear Around Your Neck: Not Just For SciFi Anymore

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IT Systems You Wear Around Your Neck: Not Just For SciFi Anymore

4/27/2005

By Terry Calhoun

BEFORE HE RETIRES OUR COLUMNIST EXPECTS TO SEE THE GADGETS OF SCIENCE FICTION BECOME REALITY

One of my favorite columnists posted an April Fool’s joke item about the new convergent device, the ‘iTreoPod’. He wrote it well enough that the joke was suspended until you clicked through to the image, which was of an iPod duct-taped to a Treo 650 smart phone.

But that story, and some other recent developments, has me thinking more and more about whatever eventual convergent device we are all headed for. What d'es it look like? What d'es it do? What’s next?

Having averaged close to one full science fiction novel per day from about age 7 to 35, I am pretty familiar with a lot of the ‘future’ gadgets the writers used to posit in their stories and novels. Certainly, storage devices that hold oodles of information and are crystal-like are happening now, what with DVDs and flash memory devices being designed to be worn as jewelry.

And I have been happy as a clam with my Treo 600, mostly using it as a phone and a modem for my laptop, but also taking advantage of its PDA functionality. However, try as I might I cannot make myself use it regularly for web browsing or email. (At 1,200+ each day, it’s too much for a small device with a small screen.)

But I’ve been shopping lately for a new laptop. As I thought and shopped, lots of “Why not?” questions popped into my head, so I am going to put a few in here, in bold type to be separate from the narrative. Maybe you know the answers? I don’t.

We’re on a two-year replacement cycle at SCUP and this time the decision was particularly difficult: small and light versus large and heavy. It’s the first time the choice was that stark, because until recently the small and light laptops were either too expensive or lacked power and speed.

Why don’t laptops come with AM/FM radio built in? It’s seems such an easy, inexpensive no-brainer?

That’s no longer the case. However, I still could not find the right small and light laptop that did not also require a lot of extra peripherals to lug around with it (or forget and leave behind when traveling). I decided to go big and heavy. Mostly because I like using the highest screen resolution and having everything I might possibly want to use on the desktop in front of me. That meant one of the big machines with a 17-inch monitor.

Why can’t a machine as big as the one I eventually chose have nestled slots for several storage media? I don’t mean one slot they can all fit in, but several slots that you can carry around one of each–inside the laptop–so you’ve always got the one(s) you want with you? Literally, with only another quarter-inch of thickness and minimal weight, my new machine’s lid could hold a dozen DVDs, easy.

I really wanted a Dell SPS, but the wait time was long and it was pretty expensive. When I spec’d it out, it was gonna come close to going over $4,000 and that’s hard to justify in these days when you can get a serviceable new laptop for $1,000 (or less).

Why d'es no one make a laptop with a monitor resolution finer than 1900x1200 pixels? My old machine, from two years ago had that, but I couldn’t find a newer one with greater resolution.